In recent years, digital cameras (image sensing apparatuses) capable of photographing an image by a simple operation and converting the image into digital image data have been widely used. To print an image photographed by this camera and use the print as a photograph, the photographed digital image data is input from the digital camera to a PC (computer), and undergoes image processing by the PC. Then, the processed data is output to a color printer, which prints the data.
To the contrary, there have been developed color print systems capable of directly transferring digital image data from a digital camera to a color printer and printing the image data by the color printer without using any PC, and so-called photo-direct (PD) printers capable of directly mounting in a color printer a memory card which is mounted in a digital camera and stores a sensed image, and printing the photographed image stored in the memory card by the color printer.
In such a conventional printer apparatus, a CPU which controls the entire apparatus executes processing which requires a long time, e.g., image processing such as decoding/expansion and color conversion of received image data. This prolongs a time required for the processing, resulting in a long time required for printing.